


Dies the Music

by Untherius



Series: Adrift [2]
Category: Emberverse - S. M. Stirling
Genre: Celtic Woman, Gen, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on tour, disaster befalls an Irish music group as they traverse Wales en route to London.  When the dust settles, the survivors awake to a Changed world and find that their ordeal has only begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bwlch y Clawd Pass, southwest of Treorci, Wales  
March 17, 2012, Midnight  
Change minus ten minutes

Orlagh Fallon—whose real name was Orla--sat in near-darkness, her knitting needles clicking softly. She couldn't sleep, which wasn't unusual for her while traveling in a motor vehicle. After nearly thirty-eight years on Earth, she still hadn't adapted to the infernal things. Knitting kept her mind at least semi-occupied.

She'd taken a temporary leave as Tin Cup Gypsy's lead singer to participate in a Celtic Woman reunion tour. She was incredibly excited about that. She'd had a great deal of fun as one of Celtic Woman's original members. Not all of the former Celtic Women were able to work the tour into their lives, however--they were missing Meav Ni Mhaolchatha, Deidra Shannon, and Lisa Kelly, who'd just left the group to focus on her family for a while.

Orla was still troubled by the persistent lack of communication with her husband John and son Fred. Five years before, she'd been on a mirror-call with them when the image had gone all ruddy, as though the sun had been shining through the smoke of a forest fire, or through a red-stained glass window. Minutes later, fire had erupted in the near background and the call had been severed. No amount of trying had re-established the line. Her initial attempts had been interrupted by band practice. When she'd finally had time to try again four hours later, she'd still had no luck. She'd then tried several other people on Ingary with the same unsettling lack of results. Since then, she'd felt adrift in the galaxy.

She wasn't alone in her insomnia. Further back on the bus, someone, probably one of the drummers—Ray Fean and Andy Reilly were both notorious night-owls--was reading by a small LED lamp. Across the aisle, violinist Mairead Nesbitt was also knitting. Like Orla, Mairead--privately called Marido by her husband and Orla--also had trouble sleeping on the bus.

Orla paused in her knitting and listened to Mairead's own needles furiously clicking in the darkness and smiled. She knew Jim sat next to his wife and also that he, too, had trouble sleeping in a moving motor-vehicle. It seemed to be something all three of them had in common. She heard scribbling of pencil on paper. How did he manage to write in the dark? Maybe he knew some magic that helped with that and maybe it was what helped him run all the lighting boards in the dark during concerts. He didn't talk about it and while Orla suspected Jim might be a Dark-seer, she wasn't about to be nosy. It was just bad manners. Still, if it was something Jim could teach, Orla could think of any number of situations in which seeing in the dark would be very useful. Fortunately, she didn't need to see in order to knit, so she went back to it.

After a few minutes, a glow to the southwest caught her eye. She glanced in that direction, then back to her knitting, then quickly back toward the glow. She froze. What, in the name of Grapthar's Hammer, was _that_? The only major city within hundreds of miles with enough candle-power to produce that kind of glow was London. But London was not only too far away to appear that bright in south-central Wales, but was in almost exactly the opposite direction. The light quality was all wrong, too. The glow from city lights was always yellow-ish. The glow from the southwest was stark-white. A city's lights were generally concentrated in more or less one spot. The southwestern light seemed to be spread out along the entire horizon. Moreover, it was growing.

She leaned closer to the window, but her breath fogged the glass. She wiped at it with her sleeve. The light was not only expanding, but seemed to be moving. She quickly dismissed the possibility of a nuclear explosion. Not only was it in entirely the wrong place for that, unless someone had struck the entire east coast of the United States at once, but it was behaving in entirely the wrong way. A nuclear blast would have been a sudden spike of bright light, which would then quickly have vanished. It couldn't be Iceland exploding either, as that island was just a little west of due-north and, like London, in entirely the wrong direction. She didn't think the geology was right for a super-caldera and a volcanic eruption would have been more orange anyway and not remotely that expansive.

As she watched, what looked like a wave of light crested the horizon. Was it some odd form of lightning? No...it was all wrong even for that. As it grew closer, she could see what looked like multicolored electrical arcs dancing across what seemed to be a wave-front. She felt her eyes widen. She'd seen paintings of that sort of thing, paintings of intense magical battles from one of the ancient Mage Wars.

“Mairead? Jim?” she said, using their assumed names, without taking her eyes off the approaching light. A moment later, she heard them both gasp. She heard at least one more gasp behind her and a curse from the driver. Then the road dropped below the ridge-top and she lost sight of the wave.

The light continued to grow. The bus veered southward with the road and minutes later, the wave crested the ridge. Then the light washed over them and all hell broke loose.

Her head seemed to fill with light, as though it had entered her skull to briefly bounce around inside it. She heard most of the people on the bus yell some sort of expression of pain. Orla herself felt something entirely different, though she was at a loss to describe it. She didn't have time to dwell on it. The bus lurched, tires squealed, then the whole thing tilted in a way buses were not intended to tilt. It kept tilting. Then the noise stopped, though the motion continued.

Moments later, there was a powerful jolt accompanied by screeching metal and screaming people. The bus and all of its contents whirled about chaotically as up and down became mixed up in one another. Orla felt something hit her head and she lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Hayley glanced over at the figure lying on the ground several yards away. Her hand flew reflexively to her mouth and she inhaled sharply. “Oh, no...” She liked Jim. In fact, if she hadn't already been engaged herself, she might once have fought Mairead over him. Aside from that, though, she admired and respected him professionally. He was...had been...a very good friend. A lump rose in her throat as tears welled up in her eyes. “I'm so sorry,” she said. She put her arms around her friend and hugged her tightly.

Mairead hugged back weakly. Then she reached up behind her own head, undid the tie securing her hair, then twisted it up into a bun and tied it off again. As she lowered her arms again, she broke down into wracking sobs and sank to her knees.

Hayley just stood there, unsure what to do. Orlagh was...still winding that bloody stick! “What are you doing?!” Hayley screeched. She hadn't meant to do that, but Orlagh's behavior was just so...wrong. There were people...friends...who needed help and there she was playing with a stick and what remained of her harp!

“I must do this,” said Orlagh, “before the magic clears.”

“Magic?” Hayley blinked at her friend. “What magic?”

“That light wave.” said Orlagh.

“You...you know what that was?”

“Not entirely,” said Orlagh, “but it was carrying...or maybe carried by...some frightfully strong magic. It was like nothing I've ever felt before. One does not simply unleash power of that magnitude for no reason. I have a very bad feeling about all of this. That's why I must finish this...” She brandished the wire-wrapped stick. “...before that energy dissipates. We may need it.”

“What exactly _is_...that,” said Hayley, pointing at it.

“A staff,” said Orlagh.

“I don't believe I'm hearing what you're saying,” said Hayley. Her friend had apparently gone mad. She didn't see any visible head wounds, but clearly Orlagh had taken a strong lump or two. Still, she at least _sounded_ sane, the content of her words notwithstanding. It was all quite odd.

“You'd better stand back,” said Orlagh, as she tied off the last string. The thing looked ugly as sin, with bits hanging off here and there. It looked like a trip hazard waiting to happen. She bent down and peeled off her shoes and socks.

Hayley blinked. Maybe her own bump on the head had been worse than she thought, for she could swear Orlagh's feet changed shape before her eyes, her toes resizing to be more or less equal and spreading out into a wide fan arrangement, rather than the narrow, elegant wedge shape they should be. Her eyes also seemed to be a little larger than they'd been before.

Orlagh took a few steps downslope and bounded onto a large rock.

“ _Now_ what are you doing?” said Hayley.

“She's right,” said Mairead softly, still kneeling on the ground. “You should step back a little.”

Hayley was unsure, but something in her friend's tone suggested she was serious. Despite what passed for better judgment, she moved back a little before turning to watch Orlagh do...whatever it was she was going to do. Then her friend's behavior became even stranger.

Orlagh took the stick in both hands, level and shoulder-width apart. She tipped her head back and sang a single, clear note, a middle-C. It carried further than Hayley might have expected. She tapped one end of the stick firmly against the rock, then flipped it around and tapped the other end. Hayley could swear the rock rang in the same note. The sound rose to fill the air.

Then Orlagh lifted the stick above her head, shifted her hands toward the center, and began to slowly twirl it horizontally through the air. Now Hayley knew her friend had lost it. Before she could say anything, though, the ends of the stick began to glow a greenish color.

A humming sound began. It seemed to come from the stick. Suddenly, energy arced out of each end and crackled along its length. Orlagh spun the stick faster. First there were just a couple of arcs, then more and more. The more arcs there were, the faster Orlagh spun and the faster she spun, the more arcs there were until the whole thing seemed to be a single rod of dancing, hissing, greenish lightning. The humming sound rose in frequency as the glow spread toward the stick's center...and Orlagh's hands.

Then the energy arcs began to change color, first blue, then red, then orange, until the entire visible spectrum seemed to be represented, all the colors dancing and shifting back, forth, and around in a mesmerizing pattern. Then energy began to arc off the ends of the staff and out into the air, making loud shushing-humming sounds the likes of which Hayley had never heard. Orlagh just twirled the stick faster and faster. The lightning...if that was what it really was...didn't seem to be coming _from_ the stick so much as going _into_ it. It bounced off of everything within what had to be at least a two-hundred-yard radius, sometimes slicing through the air uncomfortably close to where Hayley was standing. One even flared up right next to Mairead's knee as she knelt there on the ground, but the woman didn't even flinch.

The humming sound continued to rise along with the energy level. The light around Orlagh swelled to become an orb that filled the space around her. It grew so bright, in fact, that Hayley finally had to turn aside. After another couple more minutes, she heard a loud _CRACK_. Then everything went still, dim, and quiet.

She heard footsteps approach and turned around to see Orlagh trotting over to where she stood behind Mairead, who still knelt on the ground. Orlagh had been a typical Irish red-head, but her hair was now an unusual metallic bronze color and seemed to shine with an odd inner light. It was beautiful!

She held what looked like a metal rod, but in exactly the shape of the rowan stick. Even the bark pattern was clearly visible. Its surface was a sort of blue-green-grey color and had a peculiar opalescent sheen to it. It almost looked like it bore the same sort of rainbow coloration that one sees in freshly-welded metal. Only the variations in color were much narrower, more like the sheen on a soap bubble. Hayley had no idea what Orlagh had just done, let alone how she'd done it, but it had indeed been impressive.

Orlagh grinned, hefting what Hayley had to admit was now clearly a staff. “It worked!” she beamed.

“It's still a wand,” said Mairead flatly.

Orlagh rolled her eyes.

Mairead's lips spread into a strained smile. “I like your hair,” she said. “It's...llergatiar.”

Orlagh smiled. Hayley didn't understand what 'llergatiar' meant, but Orlagh apparently liked it.

Orlagh's expression changed as she looked over toward Jim's body. “Ya-Marido,” she said. She pronounced it, “MAH-ree-doh.” She slowly jerked her head in the same direction, then said something to Mairead in a language Hayley didn't recognize.

Hayley knew some Gaelic, as did every member of Celtic Woman, and while it sounded a little like that, it was definitely something very different. The accent with which she spoke was also markedly different, and clearly _not_ Irish. In fact, Hayley didn't think she'd ever heard one like that before in her life.

Orlagh reached down and helped Mairead to her feet. Together, they walked over to Jim's body and looked down at it. Hayley stood there watching her friends, who seemed to have forgotten all about her for the moment. Mairead was already bare-footed—which was typical for her during bus rides--but Hayley thought she saw her feet change like Orlagh's had. She also thought she saw something sticking out of the lower legs of both women maybe six inches above their ankles, though it was hard to tell as they both wore long skirts.

The two women, barefooted, positioned themselves on either side of Jim's body and grasped the staff between them. They closed their eyes and tilted their heads back. First, Mairead said something in that other language, then Orlagh replied. They went back and forth like that for at least a dozen exchanges. Sometimes they echoed each other, sometimes not, and sometimes they spoke in unison. Then they began to circle the body and the speaking turned into chanting, still in that same language, and still in that odd accent.

After another short while, the chanting turned into singing. Orlagh, of course, had a phenomenal voice. It rose strong and clear, carrying easily through the still air. Mairead's voice was excellent, too, though not heard often as she nearly always played fiddle and rarely made voice performances.

The singing, still in that strange language, rose and fell with an odd rhythm. It was strangely mesmerizing. It was clear to Hayley that her friends were performing some sort of funeral rite for Jim. She was unfamiliar with whatever tradition her friends were observing. She didn't think it was Celtic, though. It was intriguing, whatever it was, and she felt a bit put out that she wasn't included. Jim had been her good friend, too!

After what felt to Hayley like an hour, but could easily have been only half that long, Orlagh and Mairead abruptly stopped both their motion and their singing. Then they loudly announced a single phrase: “Rumordimrenon wilhorthar mohral!” Hayley didn't understand it, but she nonetheless somehow felt the impact of its meaning: Hail the victorious dead!

At that, Orlagh and Mairead, still holding the staff together, tilted it upright and drove it into Jim's chest. Greenish energy erupted from that end of it. It was so bright that Hayley had to lift her hand to shield her eyes.

When the light cleared and Hayley could look again, she saw that Jim's body had vanished! Orlagh and Mairead stood where it had been, embracing each other and crying. As Hayley stumbled toward them, they broke apart and walked toward her.

“What...what...what happened?” stammered Hayley.

Orlagh looked deeply into Hayley's eyes. “We had to do it,” said Orlagh.

“Do what?” said Hayley, still not quite believing what she'd thought she'd seen. “Where'd he go?”

“Funeral rites,” said Orlagh. “Surely you didn't expect us to leave him to be...” She choked back a sob. “...eaten by ravens and the like.” Mairead sniffled and made a squeaking sound.

Hayley just stood there with her mouth hanging open. She had no idea what to say to that.

“Are you familiar with Norse funeral rites?” said Orlagh.

Hayley nodded. The Norse used to cremate their dead on pyres. Sometimes those would take the form of a boat as some sort of fiery burial at sea.

“What we did was similar,” said Orlagh. “The situation demanded it in accordance with our traditions.”

“But...you're Irish!” said Hayley. Orlagh smiled thinly, but said nothing at first. Mairead half-glared, which was something else Hayley had rarely seen her do.

Hayley noticed that Mairead's eyes had turned from hazel to a strange sort of amber color. What was happening to her friends? Or maybe Hayley was hallucinating...or both?

“Now,” said Orlagh, “we may give attention to the others.”

Hayley reluctantly joined her friends as they combed through the wreckage. Hayley soon came upon fellow songstress Lisa Lambe. Her body lay in a contorted position, her head craned at an unnatural angle. Half of her red-brown hair wrapped around her neck and her brown eyes stared lifelessly up into the sky.

Hayley choked on a tear and looked away. After a moment, she took a deep breath, held it, let it out, then knelt down and closed Lisa's eyes. While that somehow improved the situation slightly, she couldn't bring herself to do any more. She looked away and her gaze fell on someone else, a someone else who seemed to be reaching out toward her. She scurried in that direction, being careful not to trip over anything.

As Hayley approached, she suddenly stopped and raised a hand to her mouth. Fellow singer Susan McFadden sat on the ground, her legs stretched straight out in front of her. A piece of something—probably metal--protruded from her chest just to the right of her heart. There was blood everywhere, some of it fresh and red, some dried, crusted, and brown. It was all over Susan's blouse, on her hands, oozing from a nasty-looking gash just above her knee, trickling generously out of both corners of her mouth, and matted in her long, blonde hair. Her breathing was shallow and labored and agony was written all over her face.

Hayley stared in horror for a few moments, before forcefully wrenching herself out of it to kneel down in front of Susan. “I'm here, Susan,” said Hayley, trying to sound optimistic. “It's going to be alright.” Hayley wasn't sure she believed it herself and she wasn't the one laying broken and bleeding on the ground.

Susan weakly opened and closed her mouth, as though she were trying to say something. After a few moments, she seemed to give up on that. Instead, she raised a bloody hand and placed it against the side of Hayley's face. It felt wet, cold, and sticky. She held it there for a moment, before letting it slide downward, falling briefly onto Hayley's shoulder before sliding off. Then Susan went still, the light fading from her brown eyes. Hayley reached over with her own quivering fingers and closed the lids. She crossed herself before standing up, more tears coming to her own eyes.

She looked over and watched briefly as Orlagh and Mairead periodically bent down over something on the ground, probably another body. Their brief pauses were not encouraging. Surely they would have spent more time on the living, though with their strange behavior....

A moan nearby caught Hayley's attention. She followed it. It was fellow songstress Chloe Agnew...and she was alive! Hayley stepped over to her and knelt down next to her, her own aching body protesting. It was enough to remind her that she wasn't dreaming, though she still wasn't sure about delusions. “Try not to move...much,” she said quietly.

“Ow,” groaned Chloe.

“Where does it hurt?” Hayley didn't really know what else to do, except to help her friend maybe avoid severing her spinal cord or something. She'd just watched one friend die right in front of her and she had no wish to see it happen ever again.

“All over.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“No.” Chloe sat up, gasped and flopped down onto her back, gasping again.

Hayley cringed. “You moved,” she said.

“Yeah,” Chloe groaned. “Got that. Does anything... _look_ broken...to you?”

Hayley had very little idea. “Erm...” She looked her friend up and down, prodding here and there. Nothing looked bent in a way it wasn't supposed to bend, nor did anything look too swollen, though it was hard to tell through her clothing. Chloe grimaced when Hayley pressed on her left knee and there was blood on her head between her right eye and ear. There otherwise didn't seem to be any major injuries. In fact, she seemed to be in much the same condition as Hayley herself. “...doesn't look like it.”

Chloe sat up gingerly. Hayley took her hand and helped. After a moment, Hayley helped Chloe to her feet. Her friend grimaced, then yelped, nearly falling down again. “My ankle,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes, “it hurts...bad!”

Hayley knelt down and lifted Chloe's right pant leg, which she'd lifted off the ground slightly, and gently pulled down her sock. “Hmmm,” said Hayley. The ankle, which the pants had previously obscured, was swollen badly and there was some slight, but noticeable, discoloration. “Might be broken.”

Chloe grunted a curse as Hayley took her arm to support her weight on her right side. “Oh, my God,” said Chloe, as she looked up and took in the scene around her.

“Yeah,” said Hayley. “Got that.”

“What happened?” said Chloe.

“I have no idea.”

“What happened to _you_?”

Hayley winced. “Don't ask.” After a moment, she added, “Susan...and Lisa.”

Chloe's jaw dropped. “Oh...” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Hayley helped Chloe over to a bare patch of ground, helped her sit down on an obliging rock, then continued to comb through more of the wreckage. She didn't know what else she thought she would find, what to do when she found it, or when to stop combing. She wasn't sure she trusted Orlagh's or Mairead's sanity enough to listen to their word on the subject either.

After an hour, they'd encountered five more survivors: percussionist Ray Fean, harpist Andreja Malir, piper John O'Brian, Aontas Choral Ensemble Director Rosemary Collier, and Celtic Woman director David Downes. Among the dead were--in addition to Jim, Lisa, and Susan—Celtic Women Lynn Hilary and Alex Sharpe, and pretty much everyone else who'd been on their bus...that they could identify. They'd found a few burned bodies, but positive identification would be impossible without access to dental records.

Personal effects were mostly either ruined, or missing entirely. All five of the other survivors were injured, three severely. Two others had lived a little longer than Susan had and Hayley was quite sure they'd been in severe pain. Everyone hurt, both physically and emotionally.

Ray and Andreja were banged up like Hayley and Chloe, though both suspected they may have internal injuries and a few broken ribs. John had dislocated both his shoulders. Ray had helped pop them back into place. Rosemary had a compound fracture of the tibia and a broken ulna. Both bones and Chloe's ankle had been splinted and Rosemary's compound injury bandaged, though non-sterilly. David could neither move nor feel his legs, which meant he'd probably severed his spinal cord. Nobody's cuts had been cleaned for lack of water. It was probably a miracle any of them had survived a crash like that at all.

Hayley sat with Chloe, both women staring numbly at the ruined hillside, still trying to keep from focusing on the row of bodies Hayley and the others had laid out in something resembling respect for the dead. She felt emotionally drained and psychologically wrung-out. She still didn't understand any of it, and Orlagh's cursory explanations weren't really helping. On top of the confusion, the sheer magnitude of the human suffering around her...she tried not to think about that, either. At least the moaning and screaming had more or less stopped, though she wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse...or both.

Orlagh and Mairead walked up, babbling in that language of theirs. Hayley looked at Chloe, whom she knew at least sang in Latin, Italian and German. Chloe shrugged. Apparently she didn't recognize it either.

“Right,” said Orlagh, leaning on her staff. “We're not likely to have much time, so we go that way.” She pointed down the valley toward Treorci. Then she started walking in that direction.

Hayley half-sprang painfully to her feet. “Um...Orlagh? What...”

“It's just Orla,” interrupted Orlagh. Hayley frowned. “No 'gh,'” added Orlagh...or, rather, Orla apparently.

“Fine,” said Hayley uncertainly, “but shouldn't we, I don't know, wait for the...ambulance...or something?” She immediately felt something prick at the back of her brain, something that gave her a very bad feeling, one even worse than those she'd already had.

“These accidents,” said Orla as she gestured to the mess around them, “happened in the middle of last night. If we assume that this is the only incident, this whole area should have been swarming with responders hours ago! Where are the police? Where are the ambulances? Where's the press? Where are the local people? And if it's regional, which it seems to be...” She gestured to the plumes of smoke rising over the hills around them. “...then where's the RAF?

“Listen.” She stopped talking and cocked her head. Several moments passed. “What do you hear? Beyond the sounds of human suffering, that is.”

Hayley shook her head slowly.

“Precisely. There should be a steady background roar from automobiles, trains, industry, and so on. But it's gone...all the noise of civilization has been silenced. No, Hayley, this is something big...very big...and I fear worse than anything this world has ever seen. No one's coming. Staying here will only kill us. Starvation, dehydration, disease, take your pick. We're entirely on our own, with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to it. Marido and I are on borrowed time as it is. But if we find whomever it is we seek, they'll be able to help the rest of you as well. That's why you should come with us.”

Hayley blinked. That was, by far, the most sensible thing anyone had said all day. Maybe Orla wasn't crazy. But if not, then what would explain her odd behavior and that strange language?

“Ya-Hayley,” said Orla, “please help Chloe to her feet. She's going to need your shoulder. Come with us or not, but at least get yourselves to town, for all the good it might do you.”

Hayley got up off the ground, pulled Chloe to her feet and supported her friend's left side. “What about you?” said Hayley.

Orla raised an eyebrow.

Hayley gestured at Orla's and Mairead...or, rather, Marido's apparently...feet, which were still quite bare. “How far are you...we...going?”

“We're going as far as we must,” said Orla.

“But...won't that tear up your feet?” said Chloe.

Orla smiled. “I suspect it will. But my magic will work better if I remain in full contact with the ground.”

“And I,” said Marido, “am _not_ shoving my feet back into those things.” She pointed in the general direction of wherever her shoes had gone. “Ever,” she added. At Hayley's and Chloe's perplexed looks, she continued. “Why do you think I kick them off all the time? Why do you think I sometimes perform barefooted? Why do you think some of my publicity photographs involve being barefooted on some beach? Despite some of my other past behavior, I _hate_ your shoes! Do you have _any_ idea how much they hurt my feet? I swear, when this is all over... _if_ it indeed ends at all...I am going to have a _very_ stern talk with whomever becomes our costume designer.”

“And,” said Orla, “should Marido and I survive and find those we seek, I promise I'll explain everything to you...at least as much as I know.”

With that, Orla with staff in hand, and Marido with violin case in hand, turned and set off, still bare-footed, slowly down the hill toward the road.

* * *

Orla Fallon padded slowly down the asphalt of A-4061, the road leading down toward the town of Treorci. The road surface was relatively smooth, but hard and unforgiving on her soft feet. It was just as well that it slowed her down, for the others were following only as quickly as they could hobble, which wasn't fast at all. Orla wasn't sure how to feel about that.

She and Marido were on a deadline. The trouble was, neither of them had any idea when that deadline was. She did, however, know that 'dead' was the operative word. They'd been carrying a goodly supply of medicinal herbs to make tea during their tour. They'd been among the personal effects burned in one of the fires that had started as a result of the bus crash. She'd wanted to contact the Nesbitts in the hope that they might be able to send them some replacements, but her attempts had failed. She'd tried her cell phone shortly after regaining consciousness and found that it was dead. She'd also tried several others with the same result. She intended to borrow, forcibly if need be, someone's land-line once they reached Treorci. She didn't have very high hopes for that, though. Nothing electrical on any of the nearby crashed vehicles or in anyone's belongings functioned—phones, flashlights, radios, watches, nothing. All the evidence so far told her she'd have to do everything the old-fashioned way.

Barring that, she and Marido really only had one hope. Before he died, Jim had told them both to “follow the magic.” That could have meant one of two things. Either she should follow her intuition, sort of like a Jedi followed the gentle leading of the Force, or she should actively seek out another mage. She'd decided it was probably going to involve some of both. They would need to find another mage if they were to have any hope of either returning home, or accessing more medicine. Given the chaos they'd already seen and the conspicuous lack of response by those who usually did respond to such things, she strongly suspected they'd have to rely heavily upon magic to find, let alone reach, that person.

Fortunately, they were already traveling in the needed direction. Unfortunately, she had no idea how far they'd have to travel. She didn't think it was far, though. But for all she knew, she and Marido would catch influenza or the common cold and die en route.

She felt bad about how she'd been treating Hayley and the others, giving them all the cold shoulder. “Bitch queen of the universe,” she believed the expression was. All other things being equal, it really wasn't fair to them. Unfortunately, things were not equal. Every answer Orla had given only raised more questions from her friends. Those answers would have only raised even more questions and so on. Besides, what was she supposed to say? Was she to admit to being a Magic-wielder from another planet? She would eventually, of course, just not yet. Things were already complicated and uncertain enough without throwing that out for general knowledge. She'd apologize later...if there _was_ a later. She supposed it was only their collective curiosity that would keep them all going.

After a short while, they came upon an up-ended automobile. It looked like a Fiat. It lay partly on its side near an embankment. Both occupants had been thrown from it. Orla looked at the vehicle for a moment, then had an idea. If she could push it over onto its wheels, Chloe, Rosemary, and David could ride it while the rest of them pushed.

“Stand back,” said Orla. Her admonition hadn't been particularly necessary, as the others were already well behind Marido and herself.

Orla squatted down and leveled her staff at the vehicle. She focused, willing the energy to issue forth from it. A distortion wave leaped out from its end and collided with the roof of the car with a loud _BANG_. It immediately folded up like a poorly-made pretzel, the entire frame caving in on itself.

Orla turned to Marido. “Nalf,” oops, she said.

“What the bloody hell was that?” said Rosemary through clenched teeth.

Orla turned around. “I...uh...overdid it. Sorry. Next one. We really should make stretchers for Rosemary and David.” Then she turned around and resumed walking.

Ray was about to say something when Hayley beat him to it. “Don't ask,” she said, “because I saw her make that thing and I have no idea either.”

“Tell me again,” grunted John as they started moving, “why she's in charge?”

“No idea,” said Hayley. “She just...did it.”

“Lovely,” said Andreja, who was supporting Rosemary.

“Someone had to do it,” said Orla over her shoulder. “And you were all unconscious.” Besides, she added to herself, not one of you has any idea what's really happening nor what's at stake and I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain it right yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hayley Westenra, founding soloist of Celtic Woman, is from New Zealand and currently lives, as near as I've discerned, in London. For more about her, please visit www.hayleywestenra.com.
> 
> Chloe Agnew, another founding soloist, is still with the group. Her bio on the CW site makes a reference to her being 16...though that seems to be a number of years out of date and was probably published shortly after the group first formed. For more about her, please visit www.chloeagnewsite.com.
> 
> Celtic violinist Mairead Nesbitt has also been with CW since its inception. For more about her, please visit www.maireadnesbitt.com.
> 
> Those whose fictional counterparts perish in the story also have professional web pages. I respect every one of them, greatly enjoy their real-world work, mean no ill will toward any of them whatsoever, and had purely literary reasons for excluding their characters from the story.
> 
> Cremation was only one of the ways the Norse handled their dead. Sometimes they simply buried them, as with the Sutton-Hoo ship.


	3. Chapter 3

Treorci, Wales  
March 18, Change Year 1, 2012 AD

Orla led her small group along Pen Twyn Road. They'd made a pair of stretchers at the western edge of a pine plantation just up the road. After that, there'd been a good deal of argument about which way they should go. Orla and Marido had insisted they go south along Pen Twyn Rd., while the others wanted to go into town. Orla had headed south anyway and the rest had reluctantly followed. About two hundred feet beyond the junction with the A4061, they encountered a couple of people at an intersection with what seemed to be a small residential development. A sign identified it as Druids Close and a pair of houses stood near the intersection.

“I'd bid you two a good morning,” said Orla, “but I don't believe it's either morning, nor has today been particularly good.”

“That's a bloody understatement,” muttered Ray.

Orla ignored him. “I don't suppose I could impose upon you to request use of your telephone to call Ireland, could I?”

“Don't work,” said one of the men curtly. At Orla's raised eyebrow, he continued. “None of them do. Phones are out...all of them. So's electricity. Autos, too.”

“Hmmm,” said Orla. “Well, we do have a few medical needs...”

“No hospital in town,” interrupted the man. “Nearest one's way down in Pontypridd.”

“Don't bother trying to go there, though,” said the other man. “Nothing works there either. Chap was by here on a horse half-hour ago and told us. I'd go elsewhere if I were you.”

Orla was beginning to suspect, even more than she did already, that there _was_ no elsewhere. She had no choice but to follow the magic. If the mage she sought could help her and Marido, then that person could probably also help the others. At least she hoped so, as she'd essentially promised them. It would still probably take at least three more very uncomfortable days.

Then the man sneezed. He sniffled and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “Sorry,” he said. “Cold and flu season, ya know?”

Orla felt her eyes narrow. She placed the end of her staff against the man's chest and slowly, but forcefully pushed him back. “You may have just killed my friend and me. Now, since I know you have absolutely no idea what you've just done, I will spare you and not claim vengeance as would be my right. But know that should I die from _your_ cold...flu...whatever...my ghost will haunt you and yours in this world and the next. Am I clear?”

The man nodded, a mixture of fear and confusion on his face. 

“Now,” continued Orla, “do you know anyone who might be willing to part with a cart or some-such?” The man shook his head. Orla regarded him suspiciously for a few moments before retracting the staff. She wordlessly turned and continued southeastward, her bare feet padding along the asphalt. 

“We look like the bloody Zombie Apocalypse,” muttered Ray. 

Orla glanced over her shoulder. Despite the stretchers, which were really just skids of sorts, they all really did look like a small group of zombies shambling along. She suspected that appearance would only worsen. Andreja and Ray were already showing the effects of whatever internal injuries they had. Orla and Marido would likely end up staggering down the road as whatever germs that man had given them worked their insidious ways with their bodies. Everyone was still plastered with blood, some of it fresh from wounds re-opened with the exertion of walking. The blank expressions on everyone's faces didn't help either. 

An hour later, she turned to Hayley. “Hayley, I'm going to ask you to do something for me. It's not something you're going to like, but it's important.” 

“Uh,” said Hayley, “okay...what is it?” 

“When Marido and I die...” 

“No,” said Hayley, “you're going to live.” 

“Be quiet,” said Orla curtly. “When we die, cremate our remains. Do _not_ let anything...or any _one_...eat our bodies. Is that clear?” 

Hayley started to protest again when Orla interrupted. “I said, is that clear?” 

Hayley nodded, a few tears rising up in her eyes. 

“I'm sorry, Hayley. I...don't mean to be rude. It's just that we mustn't allow ourselves to be desecrated in death.” She smiled thinly before turning to pad on down the road. 


	4. Chapter 4

Pontypridd, Wales  
March 21, CY 1, 2012 AD

Orla Fallon was glad it was March. Otherwise, her feet would surely have blistered by now. She didn't have any callus tissue on her feet and they would have burned badly on hot asphalt in mid-summer and that would have been in the first hour. She'd have been forced to walk on the gravel of the road verge, which would have torn up her soft feet, even without blistering. It would have been the next worst thing to a no-win scenario. She didn't really believe in them anyway, though that was rapidly catching up to her.

The group had been on the move more or less non-stop for three days, the sunrise of a fourth just a couple of hours away. They'd stopped for rest and water and food—which had mainly involved pulling up and eating weeds like dandelions, chicory, salsify, and Queen Anne's lace--a few times. Tap water had ceased to flow two days before as all the pumps had stopped and pressure in the pipes had been depleted. They were forced to drink surface water, which they all knew was contaminated by livestock. Orla had convinced them that the risk, extreme though it was, of contracting things like Giardia and E. coli was better, more easily treated, and more readily endured than dehydration.

Orla and Marido had indeed contracted whatever seasonal virus the man in Treorci had sneezed all over them. As she'd feared, it had hit them both very hard and very quickly. She marveled at how effective it was, given the inconsistencies between human DNA and her own.

The disease had slowed them both down as much as Chloe's and David's broken bones had slowed them, if not more. The previous hour had been particularly disturbing for Orla. She'd gone from feeling warm and icky to barely being able to stand, even with the help of her staff. Marido had acquired a stick and she was likewise using it to keep herself upright. Neither of them knew how much time they had left, but Orla wouldn't have bet on more than a few more hours. They'd both lose consciousness well before that.

They were just passing through the middle of Pondypridd where several roads came together. The signs were potentially confusing. Not that she was following the signs, though. She and Marido, with the others in tow, had been staggering along all night, the moon lighting their way. She'd refused to stop for rest. She knew she was on death's door. She also knew that the magic she'd been following was close... _very_ close and _very_ strong. It gave her a great deal of hope and that hope kept her moving. Whoever wielded that magic was also moving and on an intercept course.

The others had initially wanted to head right toward the Dewi St. Hospital, but Orla had ignored it. So the others had followed wordlessly. Chloe had been crying on and off from the pain, the others grunting and groaning. She had to admit they even _sounded_ like zombies! Hayley had long before gone dry herself from both the sorrow and her empathy with her surviving friends. Orla's vision was beginning to blur.

This is it, she thought. With a force of will, she continued to put one food sluggishly in front of the other. Each step was increasingly difficult. She saw motion out of the corner of her eye and heard a female voice grunt and the thump of something hard hitting the road. She knew Marido had gone down. Footsteps rushed up from behind, probably Andreja rushing to help.

She saw motion ahead of her. Her eyesight continued to blur and she could no longer make out anything but vague shapes. The shapes came toward her. She took another step, but her legs gave out and she felt her knees hit the road. It should have hurt, but her awareness had already slipped too far. The shapes blurred further and grew larger as they approached. She was vaguely aware of animated voices, sounding distant and echoey, but she couldn't understand them through the fog clouding her mind. She watched the world tip sideways and she knew she was falling over. She felt something soft under her, as though hands were catching her. Then everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plants mentioned in this chapter are, in fact, edible. Queen Anne's lace, also called wild carrot, is actually the same species as the commonly cultivated garden carrot, and all of its parts are edible raw or cooked, though the leaves and flowers have a very strong parsley flavor. Otherwise, NEVER eat any part of any wild plant unless you know EXACTLY what it is, which part is edible, and how to prepare it!

**Author's Note:**

> In spring of 2012, Celtic Woman was engaged in the Believe tour in the United States. At the time of this posting, Celtic Woman is performing in Indianapolis, Indiana. For more information on Celtic Woman, please visit www.celticwoman.com.
> 
> Some of the information I've included about the members of Celtic Woman comes from CW's site, some from those of its current and former members, some from Wikipedia, and some I simply invented.
> 
> Orla Fallon's real first name is actually Orlagh (silly Irish), rather than the other way 'round in the story. For more about her, please visit www.orlafallon.net.


End file.
